And A Happy New Year!

Three cheers for me exceeding my December goal! As you may recall, I was complaining about my pants getting too snug a few weeks ago. Well, I decided that with this being the holiday season and all, it would be most realistic to set a goal of maintaining my weight through the holidays then get serious about dropping those few extra pounds in January. So I ignored the scale all month but coincidentally also found myself too busy to attend any holiday parties. I broke down and replaced the batteries in my scale and what do you know... I lost two pounds this month! I could kind of tell, between my pants being less snug and getting strange muscle cramps in places like my throat (usually a sign that I haven't been eating). So say it with me - Hip, Hip, Hooray! Hip, Hip, Hooray! Hip, Hip, Hooray!

Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays everyone! My Christmas started last weekend with a trip to Stevens Point to visit my family. It was somewhat of a Norman Rockwell Christmas as we gathered at my sisters house and her daughter brought out her flute and began playing Christmas carols. She's only been playing a few months but sounds like she has played for much longer. After a few minutes, my stepdaughter joins in on the piano and my stepson on the drums. Of course, the kids couldn't possibly wait until after dinner to open gifts, so we exchanged gifts shortly after arriving. My sister's band, The Lizardz, recorded a Christmas CD that she handed out to everyone. My stepmom made 2006 calendars using photos taken near their northwoods home on the lake, including shots from various family visits. I love getting personalized gifts, so this Christmas was especially nice.

This weekend was a little rougher - my son became ill on Friday which continued into the night. My husband and I were up until 3:30 am washing bedding and I had to sing at two church services the next day. I made some quick changes to the dinner I was planning and was able to pull off a pretty decent meal in the slow cooker rather than getting up early too cook. My mom and stepdad came to visit and we had a very nice Christmas Eve. One of my favorite things about holiday church services is that our friends' daughter comes home from school, where she is studying music, and sings for us. She is probably the best singer I personally know and I could listen to her for hours.

Sunday was spent at my sister-in-law's house and she outdid herself as always with gorgeous decorations and an incredible spread. Unfortunately, the kids hit their limits for the weekend and started complaining of tummy aches and lack of sleep, so we headed home.

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of one last gift that is on backorder. My husband ordered me a mixing board and wants to setup a little recording studio, because "you'd better start doing something with your talent" as he says. In some form of encouragement, I think, he made his point by sending me a link to my favorite Christmas carol with just a note saying, "Your competition." Allow me to share it with you all... be sure to listen all the way to the end as it just gets better with each verse.

But while I wait for my new toy to arrive, I'll keep on playing my newest addiction, Sudoku. If you're looking for a challenging little game that is easy to learn, give it a try!

Happy holidays everyone and my you have a wonderful 2006!

Busy times

I know, I've been dreadfully remiss in keeping everyone up to date. I promise more is to come, but until then you can entertain yourself with some photos from the Madrigal dinner. Many thanks to nGIB for taking these!

Gratification

I can't decide if I'm tired or bored. The last few weeks have been crazy... sewing costumes, painting sets, choreographing Renaissance dancing, learning lines, memorizing songs, researching songs, designing concert programs and the list just keeps going on. Four days until the big Madrigal production and I'm looking forward to reclaiming my life and returning to just a choir member, congregational song leader and band member. I'm exhausted.

My fourth week on the job, and I'm trying to convince myself that I made the right decision when I decided to take a step back and be just an employee, following someone else's plan, having more time to dedicate to my family. It would work out great if someone else's plan was a good one. Don't get me wrong, I'm obviously stuck in a learning curve, but there are so many opportunities for improvement and I'm low man on the totem pole. I'm used to being the one people came to with questions because I'd been around the longest. Now I'm learning a new industry from scratch. I love a good challenge, but I prefer the challenge to be improving the way we do business, not just learning as fast as possible to become as productive as my peers.

I just hate starting new jobs. I suppose that's why I do it as infrequently as possible. I don't feel gratified yet. The time I'm supposed to be spending with my family has been filled up with various volunteer activities - our church has practically been my second home. My doctor once told me I need to learn to relax... but I'm just not sure how. I wanted to just go to a job and do whatever someone told me to do, but the procedures are so muddled that I find myself having the urge to document and flowchart everything so that the next person who comes aboard can just start working. Finding and fixing problems has been a favorite hobby of mine for quite some time.

I need a new goal in my life. My need for immediate gratification has led me to accomplish all of the major events I wanted in life and here I am in my mid thirties wondering, now what? I don't want a high powered career goal right now. We can't have more kids. I certainly wouldn't want to clean a bigger house.

I'm starting small. Surrounded by project plans to decommission and build servers, I stumbled across a little gem today that, for some reason, I latched onto with more intensity than anything else. At the end of the day, I put all my papers away and took this one little challenge home to work on. Someone I've never met before put a posting on the employee intranet asking for help. His wife teaches an autistic child who likes to shop, but she uses attributes rather than actual names for stores. For example, Wal-Mart is "blue star" because they use a blue star rather than a dash in their logo. She has been asking to go back to "white J, yellow J, pink circle, bump" and they are asking for help identifying this place. This is a fascinating challenge and it's driving me crazy that I can't figure it out. If you've got any thoughts, please leave them in the comments.

Time to get rested up before another day...